


the sea's harp

by themis



Category: Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia A. McKillip
Genre: 1 Sentence Fiction, Canon Relationship, F/M, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-23
Updated: 2006-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themis/pseuds/themis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifty sentences about Raederle of An.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sea's harp

_Package._  
Mathom gave Raederle her first book of riddlery when she was eight and beginning to realize what his promises meant.

 _Obscure._  
She always meant to ask what riddle it was that Peven didn’t know and Morgon did; Morgon won’t tell her without her asking, even though he knows everything now and could just… _tell_ her.

 _Skeleton._  
Raederle’s never figured out if Ylon counts as the skeleton in their closet when everyone knows about him.

 _Nurse._  
Raederle’s mother had been a good friend and companion, and her father had loved her but neither of them had terribly nurturing personalities, which was why they sensibly delegated the rearing of their children to nurses.

 _Domino._  
It’s a small mask that her father gives her, but she is a small girl and everyone there will know Mathom’s children no matter how they are costumed.

 _Thaw._  
She likes the wolf-king and he likes her, and she’s tempted to tell Morgon that if they ever fight she’ll send Har after him, but…that’s really not much of a threat anymore, not to Morgon.

 _Waves._  
She sits for hours on the beaches, letting the waves come closer and closer and closer and sometimes they come right up to her chin before she moves.

 _Burglar._  
What puzzles her when she hears who has won Peven’s crown is that it seems quite perfect, quite right and she can’t remember Morgon stealing her heart when they met but it seems he did.

 _Frame._  
Raederle looks at Akren – and really, clearly sees it - for the first time when she comes to Hed on her own, out of the sea instead of upon it, and it’s early morning and the house is small but bright in the sun and she thinks there is nothing that could look more like home in the world.

 _Carpet._  
The first time Raederle and Morgon really truly argued, she turned into a stream of brackish water and ruined the Morgul’s carpets.

 _Insect._  
Cyone tilts her head to one side and blinks slowly; then she grabs her daughter’s hand and drags her out into the orchard to pick apples.

 _Mentor._  
Her father, for all his knowledge, is not a riddle-master but he takes steps to learn what she is learning; that is only fair, because it was all his idea in the first place.

 _Spirit._  
When Raederle was fifteen and the first man died in Peven’s tower, she made a promise that if no one succeeded before she was twenty-five she’d go get the crown herself.

 _Wax._  
In the wavering light from the candle, the neat lines and orderly blocks on the page shift and blur like so much sand under seawater and Raederle wonders how the riddles matter when their words change so easily.

 _Trash._  
She finds the oddest things under the sea; half-destroyed old things that would have vanished long ago anywhere else but glimmer with an odd light here.

 _Womb._  
The caves under Isig are the quietest places she will ever visit; they tell her much but not nearly enough.

 _Burn._  
She holds the fire in her hand, barely breathing.

 _Flash._  
When her hair has cast off all the jeweled pins, she lets her brother’s farmer friend help her pick them up from where they lie on the ground, flashing and glistening and newly wet with dew.

 _Anima._  
They are sitting beneath a beech tree when Morgon asks her “But who is Raederle?” and she wants to hit him or kiss him but instead she just says they’ve had enough riddles for now – or forever – and then _he_ kisses _her_.

 _Gamble._  
Rood hated the fine court methods of gambling, and when he went to Caithnard and came back with coarser games, Raederle made him teach her all of them just so she could frustrate Raith of Hel when he came courting again.

 _Statue._  
Once a suitor had presented her with a small bronze that was – she supposed – intended to be a representation of her, but Rood had mocked it so thoroughly and so harshly in front of the boy that she never got a chance to find out because the artist flushed and fled.

 _Perfume._  
Duac and Rood gave her perfume for her seventeenth birthday for a laugh and Raith gave it to her once, but Mathom never thought to and Morgon knew her too well.

 _Wine._  
There had been a time when Raederle thought – worried, really – that Rood might be in love with Morgon.

 _Reflection._  
She went to Erlenstar Mountain once after the Earth Masters were trapped there and if she didn’t see anything it was because she didn’t look very hard.

 _Take._  
Eriel Ymris makes tempting offers and Raederle finds she is reaching out her hand, reaching, reaching, reaching -

 _Magic._  
It took Raederle some time to master the pig-woman’s earthy magic, which had almost nothing to do with the books of riddlery and poetry she knew so well.

 _Fragment._  
She feels more comfortable around Astrin Ymris – sort of – after Morgon fixes everything and she even manages to explore old bits of poetry with him and Aloil, who grumbles under his breath about the inferior efforts of his youth.

 _Cats and Dogs._  
Princesses, Raederle learned, were meant to have lean, elegant hounds (consigned, of course, to the kennels) and absolutely no cats (which would claw and muss expensive fabrics) and so naturally Raederle became fondest of pigs.

 _Hum._  
Deth visits Anuin and hears her humming the sad, elegant ballads from Ymris alongside his harping, but when he asks after her progress on the flute she plays him a tavern song from Caithnard she heard once Rood singing.

 _Flinch._  
“Don’t -- ” Morgon begins and she thinks that he is angry so she turns into a crow and gazes through quizzical eyes at his bewildered face; realizing her mistake she turns back into the second most beautiful woman in An.

 _Rush._  
Morgon asked her to marry him again and when she refused he asked Mathom to talk to her, but he wouldn’t make them marry; he’d seen their marriage years ago, no reason to rush it.

 _Jester._  
Rood could make her laugh when there was nothing to laugh at in the entire world, but Raederle knew that Morgon’s death would sap him of his humor.

 _Haven._  
The first time Raederle met the pig woman she was avoiding the pomp and ceremony that the lords of the Three Portions of An reveled in, and the pig woman offered her the peace and quiet of animals and plants instead.

 _Dusk._  
“I want to…to paint you,” Morgon whispers, seeing her at dusk and Raederle laughs because he can’t paint but of course he’s the High One and he can do _anything_.

 _Chord._  
Morgon calls her to the wastes with three chords from his harp and she barely thinks to put her shoes back on before she goes.

 _Indulgence._  
Her father generally gives her what she wants, whether because he feels guilty for promising her to a man he knew only in a dream or because the things she wants are so small as to not matter she doesn’t know; perhaps it is simply because she is his daughter and he loves her.

 _Freezer._  
“Don’t sulk,” Cyone advised her once, and she learned to cope with disappointment in colder ways after that.

 _Passage._  
Raederle learns quickly to move through the back roads of the world, to hide in the night and morning mists, to make little noise; she has safe passage through the world that way, as safe as she ever will.

 _Coast._  
Raederle can only stand the soft beaches of Hed for so long before she hunts out the harsher coastlines of An and Aum and Hel.

 _Keepsake._  
The thing is, Raederle thinks when they hear Morgon is dead, the thing is they were supposed to be married and now she doesn’t even have Peven’s crown to remember him by, just a day on a mountain and…

 _Morbid._  
“When we say that we’ll live for,” she can’t manage “ever” and anyway it’s not quite true that way, “a long time, what do we mean, exactly?”

 _Shipwreck._  
First they say that Morgon and Deth have both died and then later that only Morgon has and that’s when Raederle starts to hope again.

 _Socks._  
Duac is the only sensible one, but still, sometimes he looks at Raederle without any exasperation at all and she remembers why she loves both her brothers.

 _Sand._  
“See,” she says to Morgon, rubbing sand in his hair, “the sea isn’t all danger and beauty.”

 _Coin._  
Raederle drops the coin into Rood’s hand and tells him how she found it; he looks, pondering its origins, like the chaotic scholar of a brother she grew up with and not the land-heir of An.

 _Guile._  
“Raith,” she says, “if you don’t go away I’ll shriek and faint and tell my father that you tried to do something unspeakable and you’ll never be allowed in Anuin again.”

 _Eyelash._  
She runs her knuckles along her eyelashes and no tears are spilled for her father, who might, after all, not even be dead.

 _Drive._  
“But _why_?” she asks Mathom, but the only answer he’ll give her is that she’s to be a riddle-master’s wife, like that answer that should be enough for her.

 _Net._  
Beneath the sea, Raederle closes her eyes and spreads her mind outward, seeking the familiar and the unknown and Morgon.

 _Destination._  
“Where am I going?” Raederle whispers and smiles when there is no answer.  



End file.
